9/02/2009 @ 6:45AM

A Twitterati Calls Out Whirlpool

Heather Armstrong had had enough. The mother of two had just spent $1,300 on a brand new Maytag washing machine to replace a rickety old one, only for the new model to faithfully conk out.

After a repairman had made several visits to no avail, she resorted to calling a helpline, and got a wary customer service representative who wasn’t helping. Armstrong, a little fed up at this point, finally said the magic words: “Do you know what Twitter is? Because I have over a million followers on Twitter.”

To the detriment of Maytag parent company Whirlpool, the rep said that she did and that it didn’t matter, a sentiment that was echoed by her supervisor. Armstrong went straight to her keyboard. “I had exhausted all avenues and I had given them chance after chance to make it right,” she says from her home in Utah, adding that she hoped “the right person would hear it and help me.”

Thus came the first Maytag Tweet from shift-key-loving Armstrong: “So that you may not have to suffer like we have: DO NOT EVER BUY A MAYTAG. I repeat: OUR MAYTAG EXPERIENCE HAS BEEN A NIGHTMARE.”

Three minutes later: “Have I mentioned what a nightmare our experience was with Maytag?”

Another three, equally barbed Tweets followed.

And it worked. Within hours several appliance stores had contacted Armstrong by Twitter offering their services. Then came a Tweet from @WhirlpoolCorp asking for her number, and the next morning Jeff Piraino, from parent company
Whirlpool’s
headquarters in Michigan, was on the phone, saying he was calling out a new repairman. By the following day, the fated washing machine was finally working again. Cherry on the cake: @BoschAppliances offered Armstrong a free washing machine, which went to a local shelter.

Why all the fuss? Notwithstanding her million or so Twitter followers, Armstrong’s blog Dooce.com is one of the most popular on the Internet, and her post explaining the Maytag incident already has more than 2,500 comments and counting. Last month she featured on the Forbes list of the The Most Influential Women In Media. (See “Dooce’s Dilemma”)

It was a happy ending for the Amstrong household, but it also sparked a debate in the so-called mommy blogosphere (ie. the thousands of blogs penned by stay-at-home moms, and it’s larger than you think) over Armstrong’s behavior. Sparked by an unlikely sense of injustice towards a company with a pitiably small presence on Twitter, it may have been fueled by envy of Armstrong’s ability to get the ear of Whirlpool head office.

“With great power comes great responsibility,” one blogger, mommymeleee.com wrote on Friday. “Do other, real world celebrities go on Twitter and bitch about brands?” asked blogger Anna Viele on abdtpbt.com. “I dont think so.”

But given the chance, Armstrong says she would Tweet about Maytag all over again. She also denies that she has a mob following. “I give my readers way more credit than that.” Given Whirlpool’s size as a multi-billion dollar, publicly traded company, this was fair play. “I would never do this to a local shop… I completely understand my power.”

While Armstrong’s Tweets didn’t seem to have an obvious impact on Whirlpool’s business–its shares, for instance, seemed completely unaffected last week–there are close to a million Twitter followers that will sympathize with her plight, and who might just remember the incident next time they need to buy a washing machine.

The ethics of Armstrong’s Tweet rant aside, corporations like Whirlpool should probably learn from this. Technology writer Pete Blackshaw points out on his blog that in the age of “virality” and word-of-mouth marketing, the current customer-satisfaction model is dead.

“The problem with call centers and consumer relations departments is that they tend to look at consumers in a vacuum, independent of influence,” he says, adding that it’s rare to find a website feedback form these days that asks consumers whether they “blog, spend time on message boards, or share their recommendations with others.” But companies should look into the “viral power” of their customers’ referral networks, or circles of influence, he says.

Whirlpool has only 12 Twitter posts since it was set up in November last year, and three of them are related to the Dooce.com Maytag incident. Whirlpool says that it “continually monitors social networking sites.” A spokesman added: “When we noticed Heather Armstrongs post we took immediate steps to contact her and resolve the issue through our normal procedures.”

Armstrong, for her part, says Twitter has become a tool to “empower” consumers like her–once a company figures out she’s got a listening audience, it’ll need to listen, and act.